PWO Pilot: Stacey and Elliott's Bogus Journey

[Jimmy Redman]

 

Kicking off Pilot Season: Stacey and Elliot's Bogus Journey, in which two very different fans sit down to analyse Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte from Hell in a Cell 2016.

 

https://soundcloud.com/prowrestlingonly/pilot-season-stacey-and-elliotts-bogus-journey

[Grimmas]

So excited!!!

[WingedEagle]

Really looking forward to this, but absolutely saving it until I rewatch the match. That may in fact happen today, but we shall see.

[Quentin Skinner]

Absolutely loved this show. You both did a tremendous job talking about the micro and macro of the match and also even brought up things I didn't even think about when I first saw it. The character arch discussion about Sasha was fascinating as well. This show also may have inadvertently caused me to think about how I NEED to have Sasha/Charlotte ahead of Zayn/Nakamura for MOTY voting just based on how much more is there even if I think both matches are amazingly special. Great job and I really hope there's more.

[shoe]

I absolutely loved the analysis of the match . My favorite part of wrestling is analyzing matches. It was very detailed and in my opinion totally on point. I thought for a 1st time show you had a good chemistry which I think will only grow in time. I liked that you picked a match that is fresh in everyone's mind to review for a pilot. The one thing I'd work on is the opening . I was confused. Were you guys giving us an origin of the idea of the show? I thought after hearing the open you guys were reviewing the Rey-Morrison match , and the match from the Puerto Rico set. To me though that is an easy fix. Overall guys I thought this was a good start. Looking forward to some deep dives on hidden treasures as well. As a guy on the feed color me impressed.

[cheapshot]

Will definitely give this a listen over the weekend. Great idea for a show guys!

[Therealheel]

I just rewatched the Sash Banks Vs Charlotte Hell in Cell match as I was listning to your show and analysis of the match. I agree with you that it is a great WWE match and a great match in general , I do feel that it doesn't grab me in a way that would warrant a five star rating for me , with that said I do give the match a 4 1/2 , which is a very high rating for me when it comes to rating matches. I think for myself I enjoyed the Aj Styles vs John Cena match at summerslam a little more then this match , and that match I only rated a 4 1/2 , but I felt more attached and that match grabbed me more as a fan , also the Ambrose vs Owens match at the RR this year was also a tad bit better in my opinion as well. So already I have two WWE matches this year that I liked better , but I don't want to take away from this match and I give it credit for what was accomplished in it.

Good show and I look forward to more from both of you , good idea for show and I will be listning in the future and try to watch ch he matches you both suggest.

[shoe]

I had the match in the 4*-4 1/4* range.

[Matt D]

First off, I'm more glad than anyone that this is happening.

 

I like the name, if only because I can picture the two of them portraying the different roles of Bill and Ted and the Grim Reaper in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and constantly forcing each other to play different games (or in this case watch different matches).

 

Obviously this was not that format completely yet, but I think it works as a special extended pilot, like you'd get on TV, which is almost a mini movie, if that makes sense.

 

I've laid out my views on the match pretty thoroughly. I do love this level of analysis. Parv gave me a little (friendly) heat the other day for the amount of detail/scrutiny I went into with Akiyama/Kobashi, but that's what I like best in wrestling, both in matches and analysis, the big picture AND the little one, the way a match builds from start to finish and to me, it's the matches that can handle that level of scrutiny that really hold up as the best ever.

 

I don't agree on every point. I think they gave a bit too much credit where we just couldn't be sure, like Sasha's offense being limited due to her injury. I think a lot of what she did is what she would have done anyway, which I don't hold against her, but I'm not sure how much extra I give for it. More importantly, despite Charlotte's focus, I had somewhat lost the back-injury thread by the final spots so the back giving out felt sudden. I appreciate that they didn't though and I'm glad that bit worked for them.

 

To me, the most important thing about the match was the level of character conviction and commitment shown by the two, even through botches. It's so important, especially with these two as the curtain is so thrown back now. We've seen more of Sasha as a human being than almost anyone else in her spot in history, I think. We also know Charlotte pretty well and we see both of them interact with each other out of character. But during the match, they were reacting, completely in character, to things that they couldn't anticipate, whether it was an awkward spot or (maybe) the table not breaking, or even the initial bit with the cage. They could have reset spots or worked around them, but instead they plowed through as the two characters and that gave a meaning and an absolute truth to what would otherwise feel false. There was a rawness to it all that made it feel like there was real danger, and that's not always what I want in wrestling. I'm still not 100% comfortable with it (and I would like to think that's not based on their gender. The last example before this that came to mind was, as I said, a Blade Runners squash), because I like my wrestling more illusionary (less is more, etc), but I appreciate commitment and conviction as much as anyone. In the cell, specifically, that's what a match is supposed to feel like. And this might be the first match that felt like it earned the cell in a decade.

 

Great first show. I can't wait to hear a match that you two disagree on though.

[Luchaundead]

The Sasha's psyche talk felt like a diatribe I would go off on TWIW. I loved it and am actually hearing from others the same thing that's the kind of in depth analysis you can only get from PWO.

 

If there's voting this gets the thumbs up

[Grimmas]

Yeah, I want this to be picked up.

 

For the record I have it at **** 3/4 and current MOTY (tentatively, as I am still debating placements)

[Matt D]

The Sasha's psyche talk felt like a diatribe I would go off on TWIW. I loved it and am actually hearing from others the same thing that's the kind of in depth analysis you can only get from PWO.

 

If there's voting this gets the thumbs up

That was going great but really came together when Elliott brought in Eddy.

[Luchaundead]

I haven't watched the match yet btw because I'm a terrible misogynist

[bradhindsight]

I was at ****1/4 on first watch Steven - great match.

[Grimmas]

I was at ****1/4 on first watch Steven - great match.

I started at **** 1/2.. it's went up with a second watch.

[cheapshot]

For the record I went ***1/2

[Jimmy Redman]

Thanks everyone for the feedback and kind words. We had so much fun doing it (we actually talked about the match for over an hour before we even started, and I don't think we repeated ourselves once when we pressed record...there was so much to say) so it's great that people enjoyed listening to it too.

 

The one thing I'd work on is the opening . I was confused. Were you guys giving us an origin of the idea of the show? I thought after hearing the open you guys were reviewing the Rey-Morrison match , and the match from the Puerto Rico set.

 

Yeah sorry about the confusion there. We were just trying to explain what our idea for the show was and where it came from, which was basically just us (and Matt) having a private conversation and going "Hey, watch this random awesome match!" every so often. Those were just examples of what we'd been showing to each other.

 

My favourite thing is still that if you listen closely at about the half hour mark, you can hear my father in the background shouting at me "Hey Bobby, Beyonce is on the Country Music Awards!"

[elliott]

Sorry for taking so long to reply. Just wanted to echo Stacey's appreciation for those who listened to the show, enjoyed it and gave positive feedback. We had a lot of fun. I must say I'm interested if anyone listened to it who didn't like the match and what their thoughts were.

 

As Stacey said, there was actually a lot more we could have talked about. After we finished and continued chatting, we talked a little bit about the promotion of the match and whether or not deciding to put it in the main event slot as a last minute decision was a missed opportunity. I think there's an interesting discussion there and you could approach it from a number of different ways. On the one hand, yes a one month (or longer if possible somehow) would have been ideal to make it an even bigger moment. On the other hand, can you imagine the (likely) self aggrandizing behavior of the WWE in the month leading up to the event? You absolutely run a dangerous risk of blowing it and having everyone reject it and the match before it ever happens. Its a tough situation because its hard to rely on WWE not being annoying as fuck in their presentation. But on the other hand, yeah, deciding last minute to have the first women's main event feels like a huge missed opportunity.

 

Also wanted to touch more on the format. Yeah, we deviated from it for the first show. But I think we kind of had to. It was an important match and we both had major opinions on it. It was a good representation for what we hope for as two different sorts of fans. But going forward it will be an I recommend a match, Stacey recommends a match, and then the mystery match. Ideally the mystery match will be something neither of us as seen or is something that we haven't watched in a long time or whatever. I sort of imagine that slot being a "listener recommendation" spot.

 

Assuming we continue with more shows, I would expect my selections to be more in the realm of Lucha, Shoot Style, and Non WWF or JCP territories like Memphis, AWA, Portland, Puerto Rico etc. I think its fair to say that everything we watch will be available somewhere online so everyone will be able to see the matches for themselves.

 

I would definitely encourage an "Elliott's ridiculous comparisons drinking game" for maximum enjoyment. In this first one alone I compared Sasha Banks to Rey Mysterio Jr, Akira Hokuto, Kyoko Inoue, Genichiro Tenryu, Riki Choshu and Terry Funk just for fun at the end.

 

Getting back to Charlotte vs Sasha.

 

One thing I forgot to mention is the Charlotte laying on the ropes and Sasha giving her the double knees shot. Ordinarily this is the sort of spot I hate. One of my least favorite spots ever is that spot where someone is lying face up on middle rope perfectly balanced while the other guy does a springboard leg drop or something like that. It always looks terribly because the wrestler taking the move is always holding onto the ropes and it is just awful. Rey Jr, Psicosis, & Juvy did this shit all the time in the mid-late 90s and it looked awful everytime. Even worse when dudes like Jerry Lynn would steal it. Sasha’s take on that tends to not bother me so much. She usually gets her opponent on the ropes in corner and goes right into the double knees. Its not quite one motion, but its usually about as close to one motion as you can get for something like that. Here, it started to drift into that taking to long this is ridiculous territory because Sasha took the time to get the chair also and set that up. I could see this as a criticism, but considering Sasha doesn’t normally take so long to execute that spot and the reason it took so long is because she was getting a chair to get revenge on Charlotte for putting her through the chair earlier in this hate filled gimmick match makes this another “not a real criticism” criticism. It took longer than you’d ideally like. But there was purpose behind why it took longer than it did.

 

We also forgot to talk about Charlotte destroying Sasha’s face on the steel steps to end Sasha’s comeback which led to the table shenanigans. Perhaps this is where Matt gets lost on the back selling? Up to this point all of Charlotte’s focus has been on the back. Sasha has gotten brief flurries of offense before getting cut off because she can’t follow up due to the damage done to the back. The smash into the steps, like the earlier spot where Charlotte pulls Sashsa into the ring post, were Charlotte’s only non-back focused cut off or transition spots of the match. But they worked because they came about naturally. But we went from Sasaha’s longest sustained run of offense in the match to all the table stuff with a Sasha to Charlotte transition stemming from the brutal face slam into the steps. So I can see how we might lose the back work here. But since Sasha is having her longest sustained run of offense leading into the table spots, its hard to see how Charlotte can do anything to Sasha's back. When Charlotte goes back and offense and goes for the figure 8, she actually works in yet another back breaker variation in order to put Sasha down for her signature leg based submission she was about to attempt.

 

Then it’s the short arm forearm “you will respect me” “no I fucking wont” spots which is like the best fucking thing ever. From there Sasha goes for the Banks Statement but CHarlotte hits two more backbreakers and then a spinning side slam.

 

Charlotte sets Sasha up on the table for the moonsault but Sasha manages to avoid it and this leads directly into the failed powerbomb attempt. But she can’t do it. Which leads directly to the awesome ragdoll on the table spots where the table is clearly not supposed to break. Then finish.

 

I’m just confused by Matt losing the “back injury thread by the final spots” when it was basically a series of backbreakers and then the failed powerbomb because of the back. Two powerbombs beat Sasha the Charlotte one in the beginning and her own failed attempt at the end. And I guess to Matt’s point about Sasha doing a lot of what she would have done anyway if they hadn’t worked the back storyline. That may be true, but it sort of misses the point that all of her offense combined beautifully for the backwork story plus the cell environment. Whether or not she would have done that double knees off the cell as her huge transition without the back work is incidental to the fact that it’s a logical, not to mention brutal looking move, that would work/worked as a game changer for someone like Sasha with a bad back going up against someone like Charlotte. Even if the back work wasn’t happening it would have been a great transition spot because of the size differential between them.

 

I dunno, I thought they did a great job staying on point from start to finish. I agree with what Matt says about the conviction of the character work though.

 

One of the 5-10 best WWE matches ever